Tag: Serbia

After more than 15 years on the run, Ratko Mladic, commander of Bosnian Serb forces during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, was arrested Thursday on war crimes charges, including the slaughter of thousands of Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995. (more)

With ethnic divisions still etched into the memories of its citizenry, Europe’s youngest democracy, Kosovo, is holding its first parliamentary elections since it formally declared its independence from Serbia in 2008.

The Polish people are having a rough time of it this spring. At least 14 people have died in recent days after Poland’s largest river, the Vistula, flooded an area some 50 miles away from Warsaw, and the capital city is in danger of becoming waterlogged as well.

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is on trial for genocide at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague for his role in the mass killings of Croats and Muslims during the Bosnian war in the 1990s, but a defiant Karadzic apparently doesn’t believe that he presided over an ethnic-cleansing campaign.

A year after declaring independence from Serbia, Kosovo has received good marks from European monitors for its first round of local elections, which could lead to wider recognition and acceptance of its newly established status in the international community.

Why has the U.S. maintained an aggressive stance toward Russia long after the demise of the Soviet Union? And how on earth does that strike anyone in Washington as a productive strategy for America, not to mention the rest of the West?

For reasons too numerous to fit into a short summary, Pat Buchanan isn’t someone whose writings we’d routinely pick up on this site. However, in this case his essay about the Georgia-Russia conflict, er, bears repeating here, if only to illustrate how not all conservatives see the recent clash in Eastern Europe the way the Bush administration does.

Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal for the murder of civilians in Sarajevo and Srebrenica during the Bosnian war, has been arrested in Serbia after being underground since 1997. Seems the lure of EU membership is getting the government there to turn up some old stones.

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica dissolved his country’s parliament Saturday and said he would request new elections for May 11. The action followed a conflict between Kostunica and pro-Western President Boris Tadic on how Kosovo’s independence affects Serbia’s quest for membership in the European Union.

Russia and the U.S. are picking sides in the conflict over Kosovo’s bid for independence from Serbia. Washington’s support of Kosovo led to last week’s protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, and now Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who may well be next to lead Russia, has reaffirmed that his country will stand behind Serbia. Medvedev commented Monday during a visit to Belgrade.

A demonstration of about 150,000 people near the American Embassy in Belgrade turned riotous Thursday when protesters opposed to Kosovo’s bid for independence from Serbia stormed the embassy and set fire to its façade.

Kosovo’s declaration of independence has prompted both condemnation and cheers from world leaders. Whether in the U.N. Security Council or the European Union, global opinion is divided. In particular, the declaration has served as a flashpoint for tension between the United States and Russia, an ugly reenactment of the kind of jockeying for influence that was supposed to have been buried with the Cold War.

Four Serbian men charged with killing six Bosnian Muslims during 1995’s Srebrenica massacre have been convicted by Serbia’s war crimes court. The four, members of a paramilitary group called the Scorpions, were given jail sentences ranging from five to 20 years.

In an unprecedented case, Bosnia sought payback in the form of billions of dollars from Serbia for the ethnic conflict that claimed thousands of lives in the 1990s. On Monday, the U.N.‘s International Court of Justice absolved Serbia of accountability for genocide but accused Belgrade of failing to thwart the Srebrenica massacre of 1995, according to the BBC.